Savage Death-Myths

Let us now examine in detail a few of the savage stories of the Origin of Death.  That told by the Australians may be regarded with suspicion, as a refraction from a careless hearing of the narrative in Genesis.  The legend printed by Mr. Brough Smyth {183a} was told to Mr. Bulwer by ’a black fellow far from sharp,’ and this black fellow may conceivably have distorted what his tribe had heard from a missionary.  This sort of refraction is not uncommon, and we must always guard ourselves against being deceived by a savage corruption of a Biblical narrative.  Here is the myth, such as it is:—­’The first created man and woman were told’ (by whom we do not learn) ’not to go near a certain tree in which a bat lived.  The bat was not to be disturbed.  One day, however, the woman was gathering firewood, and she went near the tree.  The bat flew away, and after that came Death.’  More evidently genuine is the following legend of how Death ‘got a lead’ into the Australian world.  ’The child of the first man was wounded.  If his parents could heal him, Death would never enter the world.  They failed.  Death came.’  The wound in this legend was inflicted by a supernatural being.  Here Death acts on the principle ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute, and the premier pas was made easy for him.  We may continue to examine the stories which account for death as the result of breaking a taboo.  The Ningphos of Bengal say they were originally immortal. {183b} They were forbidden to bathe in a certain pool of water.  Some one, greatly daring, bathed, and ever since Ningphos have been subject to death.  The infringement, not of a taboo, but of a custom, caused death in one of the many Melanesian myths on this subject.  Men and women had been practically deathless because they cast their old skins at certain intervals; but a grandmother had a favourite grandchild who failed to recognise her when she appeared as a young woman in her new skin.  With fatal good-nature the grandmother put on her old skin again, and instantly men lost the art of skin-shifting, and Death finally seized them. {184}

The Greek Myth

The Greek myth of the Origin of Death is the most important of those which turn on the breaking of a prohibition.  The story has unfortunately become greatly confused in the various poetical forms which have reached us.  As far as can be ascertained, death was regarded in one early Greek myth as the punishment of indulgence in forbidden curiosity.  Men appear to have been free from death before the quarrel between Zeus and Prometheus.  In consequence of this quarrel Hephaestus fashioned a woman out of earth and water, and gave her to Epimetheus, the brother of the Titan.  Prometheus had forbidden his brother to accept any gift from the gods, but the bride was welcomed nevertheless.  She brought her tabooed